Occupy Wall Street's Plan to Erase Your Personal Debt

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Buy Bad Debt - Write It Off!

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An offshoot of the The Occupy Movement, Strike Debt, has a plan to get the 99% out of debt. It's genius -- it uses the rules of the system itself to legally buy bad debt, for pennies on the dollar, and then forgive it-- just write it off!

This is how it works: The Rolling Jubilee, a spin off of the Occupy Wall Street movement, is fundraising to buy bad debt the way debt agencies buy it. Pennies on the dollar. These agencies buy this debt and begin hounding and attempting to collect. If they collect, it's 20 times the dollar amount they paid for the right to collect on it.

If they don't collect, well, that's a business expense. They win some and lose some.

Turns out anyone can buy this bad debt! With $1 anyone can buy $20 of debt. So this group, which has surpassed their fundraising goals by many thousands, will buy plenty of bad debt, and call these people up and say: Occupy just bought and retired your debt! Have a nice day!

On the group's website, www.rollingjubilee.org it says:

"A bailout of the people by the people. Rolling Jubilee is a Strike Debt project that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, abolishes it. Together we can liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal. Debt resistance is just the beginning. Join us as we imagine and create a new world based on the common good, not Wall Street profits."

Can this work? The amount of debt this group is able to buy and forgive may be a drop in the bucket but it's a genius idea that can explode our notions of debt. Can it change the rules of the game?

We can bet that whoever gets that unexpected debt forgiveness phone call, one of the 77.5% of American households that are in debt, the response will be a resounding YES, this works!

Genius!

--Bibi Farber

For more info, and to see who much they've forgiven so far, see: www.rollingjubilee.org
This video was produced by RT (Russia Today)